Bill Gates presents a toilet that turns feces into fertilizer

Health Initiative

Its use can be universalized because it does not need to connect to any sanitary system or to request water and transforms the depositions into fertilizers

The Microsoft co-founder, Bill Gates, wants to tackle the global health and sanitation crisis with a toilet that does not need water, or to connect to any purification system, and which turns human waste into fertilizers.

The billionaire showed this new model to the public at an exhibition held in Beijing to show the latest technological advances in the field of sanitary facilities to "reinvent sanitation" and accelerate its adoption and commercialization.

"This exhibition presents for the first time radically new and decentralized sanitation technologies and products ready to be marketed," said Gates in a statement released by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

In this context, the founder of Microsoft presented his proposal for a toilet, whose use can be universalized thanks to the fact that it does not need to connect to any sanitary system, does not require water and transforms human depositions into fertilizers.

Some of these toilets have already been tested in the South African city of Durban, where other models powered by solar energy are also launched, said Gates in a video posted on his official Twitter account.

The rapid expansion of these new products and rehabilitation systems that do not need to connect to any network could drastically reduce the number of deaths and the impact of poor sanitation on the health of the population in the poorest countries, he added.

Gates showed during the presentation a vase full of feces to explain that human waste can cause diseases like diarrhea or cholera, which already cause about 500,000 deaths of children under five years of age every year around the world, due to diseases derived from this lack of hygiene

In addition, he added, more than $ 200 billion is lost each year due to health costs and low productivity caused by the lack of adequate sanitation.

World Bank President (WB) Jim Yong Kim also took part in the exhibition, emphasizing that hygiene is one of the priorities of his organization, which will work with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to bring safe health care to all health services. of the world.

"Systems that can be rapidly expanded and can provide safe and sustainable sanitation to communities are critical to the quality of life and the development of human capital," said the WB leader, quoted in the statement.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which since 2011 has invested over $ 200 million to reinvent the toilet facilities, has promised during the meeting to invest an additional 200 million to achieve it.

According to the latest UN figures, 60% of the world's population does not have adequate health facilities and almost 900 million people on the planet are forced to defecate outdoors because they do not have access to the bathroom.

World Toilet Day was celebrated on November 19th, with the aim of raising awareness on the global health crisis and promoting measures to solve it, in accordance with the Sustainable Development Goals, set for the year 2030.

The Chinese authorities launched in 2015 the so-called "toilet revolution" to improve the structures of these public services and improve the quality of life of citizens, since some more traditional houses do not have their own toilets, so public toilets are essential for the population.